


she's pulled apart her heart

by maggiemcnue



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Grief/Mourning, and i love tara too, i just really love denise cloyd okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-07 12:48:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10360851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maggiemcnue/pseuds/maggiemcnue
Summary: Snippets of grief. (Tara never thought she'd lose Denise, not like this, not while she was gone.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ sorry this sucks

**001.**

Tara divides her life into multiple befores and afters. Before the walkers; after the walkers. Before her sister and niece died; after her sister and niece died. Before Alexandria; after Alexandria.

_Before Denise; after Denise._

 

 **002.**

She knows that makes her sound like a jilted lover, the victim of a woman whose greatest love was not the ladies she pursued but the thrill of the chase. But that is – _was_ – not Denise. That could never be Denise.

Denise is – _was_ , she keeps having to remind herself, _was was was_ – a gentle woman. She did not derive joy out of the suffering of others (she remembers Alisha and how she was eager to start a war against the prisoners, against the people who would eventually become Tara's new family. Perhaps that wasn't joy, but it was eagerness, and it could be terrifying when wielded properly). Her touches were soft and so were her lips and she could never, ever hurt anyone like that.

But what she never realized was how much it would hurt Tara if she disappeared.

(Or maybe she did, but she was counting on coming back.)

~~((Why did they let her go?))~~

 

 **003.**

She does not sleep in the bed. It's still neatly made, the result of Denise's meticulousness and her need for a household that is at least somewhat kept in order.

She curls up on the floor, her eyes red and raw and her throat sore and her heart empty. The very marrow of her bones is tired, but she can't sleep.

Imagining Denise's arms wrapped around her waist and her lips on the crown of her head and their legs intertwined is what lulls Tara into a very restless, very light sleep.

 

 **004.**

There is a certain sort of beauty about the mornings.

Tara never appreciated it before the walkers began to rise from their graves. She was the sort who would happily sleep past noon (after staying up until three in the morning, of course). Mornings and Tara Chambler were not well acquainted.

Denise was the exact opposite, waking up everyday at 5:30 in order to get to work by 7:00 in order to prescribe pills and have people talk about their _feelings_ and attempt to give advice that may or may not work for them. Denise and mornings were very good friends, indeed.

She wakes up with a black hole of grief in her stomach, and it takes Tara a minute to remember, but when she realizes she's on the floor and she's so cold and Denise and Glenn are _gone_ , and it all rushes to her like a hammer to the head.

She wants to sleep forever.

 

 **005.**

If she were weaker, maybe she would have just killed herself by now.

The thought crosses her mind for a fraction of a second, and she imagines what Denise would think if she thought like that, and she never even considers that option. Not that she had before, but, hell, nearly anyone else would.

(Glenn never thought about suicide when he thought Maggie was dead, Tara thinks firmly, and that helps, too.)

 

 **006.**

She opens up the dresser drawer to find Denise's litany of button-ups and sports tees. Without a word, she takes one of them – the red football tee, folded neatly into a square – and breathes into it.

It still fucking smells like her.

Tara misses burying her face into Denise's skin in the evenings and closing her eyes and just taking in the moment.

(Her skin is cold and clammy and waxy now, and the very idea of seeing Denise grey and sunken and _dead_ makes her shudder and stain the football tee with tears.)

 

 **007.**

It's chilly. She looks for her jacket – her favorite one, the dark blue one, with the white drawstrings.

But then she remembers – that was Denise's favorite, too.

_(Fuck.)_

Tara knows not to look for it any more.

 

 **008.**

Maybe one of them was always meant to die.

She thinks about all the what-ifs, all the could-have-been should-have-been would-have-beens.

She thinks about if Denise had accompanied her and Heath on that supply run; would she have died by the hands of the group Tara came across?

She thinks about if Denise had never left Alexandria; would that asshole, Negan, have killed her, too? Would Glenn be alive, then, if Denise had died by his hand?

She thinks about if she had never left Alexandria; maybe she would die, and Denise would be left to simmer in her grief.

She thinks until she can't bear to think anymore. And even when she can't bear it, she continues anyhow.

 

 **009.**

Here is the closest that Tara gets to anger:

By principle, she does not loathe and she does not hate. There's so much going on, y'know? There's no time to stew in fury like Rosita does.

But, _God_ , she could say she hates the asshole that killed Denise.

(If she was given a gun, a bullet, and the fucker who shot Denise with that arrow, she might just shoot.

 ~~She almost feels bad for that~~.)

 

**010.**

One night, Tara stares up at the ceiling and remembers.

She remembers how her legs felt wrapped around Denise's waist, their bodies pressed up together, her hands in Denise's hair and Denise's hands roaming, always roaming, warm and safe – down the curvature of Tara's back, settling for a bit on her hips before going back upwards to her tits and –

And when Tara came, it was breathless, whimpering, fast and sudden and wonderful.

Maybe if she had said “I love you” then, she would've gotten to hear it repeated back to her, too.

 

 **011.**

Tara can't eat oatmeal anymore. She can't drink lemonade, either.

She never thought she'd feel such sorrow at oats and lemons.

 

 **012.**

“I'll tell you about my brother,” Denise had said quietly one night, “if you tell me about your sister.”

They'd spent the night swapping stories.

Lilly always being dragged along on Tara's adventures when they were kids.

Denise always being dragged along on Dennis's.

David's tears of joy when his oldest daughter was accepted to med school.

Denise's father's shrug of indifference when his only daughter was accepted to med school.

Lilly breaking off the fights Tara got into.

Dennis getting into fights; bruised eyes and ice packs and Denise going "it's okay it's okay it's okay".

Promises kept, vows taken, “ _best friends forever, siblings for life_ ”.

Lilly would have liked Denise. Tara isn't quite sure that Dennis would have liked her, but she isn't quite sure that Dennis liked anything besides sports and shitty country music and dogs and his sister.

Still. She would've been open to meeting him, were the option available.

 

 **013.**

The thought comes, quick as lightning and hurting almost as much: _Did she ever really love me at all?_

What a preposterous thought. Denise would never, ever string someone along like that. (Tara will never know this, but Denise spent many restless nights reading books and wondering how she could ever have fallen in love so quickly, so deeply, so wholly. If only she had the nerves to vocalize those thoughts.

Maybe everything would be okay if she had said even a fraction of what she thought.)

 

 **014.**

Denise's handwriting is neat, small, clean. She's filled binders and notebooks with her thoughts and her cheat sheets.

One page says nothing but _Tara_.

(Tara will spend hours wondering what the meaning of this was.)

 

 **015.**

Another page says _orange pop_. Tara remembers drinking nothing but that when she was nine and ten.

Maybe Denise liked it when she was a kid, too?

 

 **016.**

She's more than happy to give the tin of lemonade to Olivia. She can't look at it anymore.

 

 **017.**

“You're better at this than you think,” said Denise one afternoon, when she was teaching Tara how to sew skin back together. “Stitches can be tricky.”

Tara smiled, and she should've been focused on learning, but Denise's lips were too nice to just look at, and they would have another day to master the fine art of stitches.

(That next day never came.)

~~((Fuck, really, why did they let her leave?))~~

 

 **018.**

Months turn into a year and into two years and into more.

Her name turns from a throbbing ache in Tara's chest to a dull ebbing to something to associate with bravery and intelligence and love. Tara can't quite always remember the deftness of Denise's fingers or the crooked smirk or how her hair looked when it was down. She doesn't need to imagine Denise holding her in order to fall asleep.

But she loves her, still. She loves her fiercely. She doesn't do anything half-assed, and love is included in that.

(And she did love Denise. She _loves_ Denise. Not loved. Loves. Tara doesn't know if she can ever stop.)

((It's weird, because she was able to get over Alisha, somehow, but here she is, stubborn as hell and not having found anyone new to court and not really wanting anyone else.))

 

**019.**

Every day is one day closer to the end.

Battles begin. There's an all out war. There are guns and explosives and deaths galore, too many to name them all, too many to grieve for. Even when they can defeat Negan, even when the Saviors aren't the threat they once were, there's always a new enemy to defeat.

(Tara sees Sasha's rotting corpse, one of the walking dead, and she vomits later on.

Tara sees Rosita's head on a pike, eyes misty, and she wants to cry when Michonne shoves a knife into her brain.

Tara sees Eric die. Tara sees Ezekiel die. Tara sees so many people just die, and there are some days where her grief for Denise and Glenn and her family is overwhelmed by the grief for everyone else.)

Their work is never done. They can never just live. They always have to be on the lookout, always surviving. That's how the world works, now. That's how it is.

 

 **020.**

Tara's luck runs out one day. It's not a very valiant death. A bullet that couldn't be avoided.

They bury her body after they get her brain.

 

 **021.**

This is the story of girl meets girl:

Awkward Girl, the ultimate introvert who spent her entire life with her weight on her back feet. Brave Girl, who spent her whole life just getting by.

They meet under awful, awful circumstances – circumstances that will never let up. A gun pointed to Awkward Girl's head, Brave Girl nearly dying while out on a supply run...these are things expected to happen in the new world they dwell in.

But, for the briefest of moments, there was a glimmer of hope for them. A chance to survive and live and love each other.

This is not how the story ended.

 

**022.**

But don't worry.

They will meet again in another life – a fairer life.

It will be strange. Years will have passed, but they will have not aged a day. Denise will be there, wearing Tara's jacket and her grey football tee and her jeans and her sneakers. Tara will be there, wearing her flannel and a classic rock t-shirt and torn jeans and Converse.

She will not be the first one Tara meets when she passes on, but she will be the one Tara cries for the most. Deep in the marrow of her bones, she knew that she would see Lilly and Meghan and her father and her mother again. In whatever afterlife there is to see.

But Denise? Would Denise want to see her again?

 

**023.**

“Hey there.” Her voice is soft, like the smile on her face.

There are tears welling up in the corners of her eyes. “Oh God. Oh God, Denise, I thought – oh God – I was so afraid--”

“Yeah,” Denise answers, “being afraid sucks.”

Tara nods, not knowing what else to say. She wipes her eyes with her sleeve.

She grabs Tara's hand. “I – I never got to say it. That I loved you. That I _love_ you. But I do.” It comes out in a swift, nervous rush, like she thinks she's going to be rejected after all this time.

(Was her voice really this warm? Was her hand really this soft?)

"I know," Tara says. "I love you, too."

Denise's smile is brilliant.

((Was there always a glimmer of happiness in her eyes like there is now?))

**024.**

They are happy.

(And, really, that's what they deserve. They've had enough trouble for a lifetime.)

**Author's Note:**

> I miss Denise. That is all.


End file.
